Monday, August 20, 2012

Chilango Islington Celebrates Its 5th Anniversary With Free Burritos

Chilango is my ultimate go-to place for Tex Mex in London. Hands down. John and I love it so much, we once drove for nearly an hour from Maida Vale to Angel, just to grab one of their amazing - not to mention, gigantic - burritos.

On Saturday, the Islington branch celebrated their 5th anniversary in Islington by giving away free burritos from 12-8 pm. I texted Ruth to ask if she and Peter had gotten any, but she replied that the line stretched four buildings in length, so they nixed the plan.

But on my way back from dropping off John's bag to him at King's Cross, I couldn't help but jump off the bus in Angel to see what all the fuss was about. The line was long (by now, it had stretched to about six or eight store-fronts in length) but moved fairly quickly. Also, the pain of standing in a long queue was ameliorated by carnival-inspired dancers wearing next-to-nothing performing samba and pulling out random people from the queue (which had now become a crowd) to dance with. So that was fun. And I got chatting to a friendly Northern Irish girl in front of me, who marveled at the thought of a free burrito at the end of the tunnel.

Once inside, we actually had a choice of customized burritos - so they weren't simply wrapping and handing them out. The staff was also extremely friendly and excited, which is surprising, considering they'd been dealing with over 2,000 people that day and I went towards the end of the evening. Very impressive.

I went with this bad boy:

A prawn and char-grilled vegetable burrito with guacamole, 'natch. Needless to say, I was very happy with my decision.

2 comments

The irony is that "Chilango" means "resident of Mexico City" and during four years there, I'd (sadly) never seen a burrito. I think burritos are found closer to the U.S. border... and in London, of course.